Tube-based MPC strategy for load frequency control of multi-area interconnected power system with HESS

With the rapid development of power generation technology and the increasing demand from power users, multi-area interconnected power systems have become a development trend. This article proposes a new robust tube-based model predictive control strategy (MPC) for multi-area interconnected power systems with hybrid energy storage systems (HESS), based on the application of HESS to optimize the performance of load frequency control in power systems. The proposed strategy is mainly based on a new robustness constraint, which effectively handles uncertain disturbances within interconnected power system by compressing the disturbance invariant set. This strategy effectively alleviates the problems caused by inconsistency in multi-area interconnection modes. In addition, a sufficient stability criterion is derived to ensure the robust stability of the system, even under uncertain disturbances. By modeling a four-area interconnected power system with HESS, the frequency fluctuations of different methods are compared and discussed in each area. Based on the constructed software-in-the-loop setup, the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed strategy are verified by experiments. •A four-area power system with HESS model is established for optimization of LFC.•The actual system state is maintained within a tube centered on the nominal system state.•The system LFC performance is improved by designing tighter invariant sets.•The stability criterion is derived based on Lyapunov functions and the Schur complement.